This would break online casinos because you could easily do that with electronics. Assuming the casino itself is playing fair.
If you could perfectly keep track of how many of which cards are left in the decks, and everytime make the most mathematically sound bet, would the house still have an edge?
(I assume the correct answer will start off saying I don’t understand how card counting works – fair enough, but what about the basic explanation of it did I misinterpret?)
In: Mathematics
I played low stakes ($2-20) black jack in bars where the dealer usually played 6 out of 7 decks in the shoe, some times even more.
In that situation then yes, counting can really help. You can know that half the remaining cards are suited, for example. That makes it an interesting game. Otherwise it isn’t.
In any real casino including online then no. They shuffle too soon. Some casinos could also object to obvious “counting plays” like sitting out all hands but the last in the shoe over and over again.
Totally doesn’t answer the question, but My partner is so good at counting cards that she has ruined UNO nights amongst our couple friends.
Playing at home with 1 deck by the official proper rules? Sure. But no place that gambles for real money does that.
Instead they say things like “we play blackjack-ish, where these are the house rules…” and these are two very important house rules they use which are good at defeating card counters:
1 – They don’t wait until the bottom of the deck and have to reshuffle. They reshuffle before they hit the bottom. That means you will never be playing at the point where you know for sure which cards have to have been delt because they were the only ones left.
2 – They don’t play with just 1 deck. They shuffle together between 4 to 6 decks into one mega-deck and deal from that, all with the same back so you can’t tell which of the decks a card is from. Not only does this make card counting hard, it also means it’s entirely legal, and likely, for two people to actually have literally the same card in their hands. (“You have the ace of spades? Hey, so do I!”) In a typical “home” game from just one deck, that would be impossible and be evidence someone is cheating. But when there’s 6 decks in the deck, there’s 6 aces of spades, 6 aces of diamonds, and so on.
Yes… with the provision that you would also have to convert that knowledge to a strategy.
One of the benefits of the card counting systems like Hi-Lo is that you keep track of a manageable amount of data (a ratio, not every card) and it has a strat attached to it (if the count is X, bet Y multiple. If count is X, deviate from basic strategy by doing Z).
Yes. In card counting you assign a value to each card played. (Simple strategy is 2-6 is +1, 7-9 is 0, 10s/Ace is a -1)
then higher current totals means getting played a higher value card is more likely and getting blackjack more probable. Computers would do this much better.
Its not a sure win but you improve the margins of winning. (General best-strategy blackjack has a return of 97.5%, with counting it can increase to 102.5%. So a loss into a profit)
Casinos counter this with using multiple decks and shuffling them frequently. With 4 decks the odds average out again. It doesn’t matter how good you are at counting, there’s just too many cards in play to make a difference.
Then shuffling frequently makes any advantage very short term. You can’t get a good enough picture of the cards left before they shuffle again.
Also, they’ll just ban you. Casinos don’t like to lose money.
Back in the day, yes. There are numerous movies and documentaries on the subject of how successful counting cards was, and how much casinos hated it (to the point of having their security assault counters to the point they gave up the info on how they were winning) and developed counter measures against it.
Card counting was absolutely a thing. But only for in-person casinos.
Online, it’s almost impossible. Every hand comes from a freshly shuffled deck with every card in it. There can be no counting because there is nothing being lost from the source deck itself. It’s always fully stocked. Unless you’re in a game with real-world deck rules (like they have 8 decks worth of cards and reshuffle them after they’re through 40-60% of the cards).
Online casinos don’t use a shoe. Every single hand, every single card, is presumably 100% random.
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